Cedar Fair to give big shareholder two seats on its board

SANDUSKY -- Cedar Fair LP, which owns Cedar Point and other amusement parks nationwide, said Wednesday it had reached an agreement with its major shareholder to have representatives on the Sandusky company's board.

Under the agreement, Cedar Fair in a statement, its board will increase by two members from its current seven after its June 7 annual shareholders meeting. The new members will be selected from candidates proposed by a search firm hired by mutual funds Q Funding III and Q4 Funding LP, which combined own 18 percent of Cedar Fair's stock.

The company and Q Investments will mutually select the board members, the company statement said. And by next year, the Cedar Fair board will revert to seven members.

Q investments also agrees to dismiss its April 29, 2010 lawsuit against Cedar Fair, the Sandusky firm's statement says.

"We believe Cedar Fair is a company with significant opportunities," said Scott McCarty, portfolio manager at Q Investments. In a statement he said: "We welcome the opportunity to help identify additional directors who can help management progressively realize this potential in 2010 and beyond."

Q Investments helped unravel a planned takeover of Cedar Fair by Apollo Global Management. The $3.4 billion deal announced in December was deemed too low in the $11.50 a share compensation to Cedar Fair shareholders by Q Investments, which voted against the deal and urged others to do so. In the face of an apparent rejection of the deal by stockholders, Cedar Fair and Apollo announced the purchase was off just before a planned shareholder vote last month.

Subsequently, Q Investments said it wanted to talk to Cedar Fair management about the future of the firm, and later said it wanted to have representatives on the board. Cedar Fair, though, released its proxy filing for the annual shareholders meeting with only its own recommended board nominees.